Laughing little buzzy bees

Laughing bees!

How's that for a change?

Last Saturday our monthly bee morning was on. This time it was at Daphne's place.

In my neybourhood, i guess some ten minutes walk, so i decided to walk.

As it was, Bart carried my bags on the bike and accompanied me to her very doorstep, even going inside, the daredevil!

Lovely sunshine on my nose on the road. So big excuse to wait a bit here and there to catch some more :-)

Josee, Kathleen and Marjolein were already in. Petra and Henny would come later after some important appointments they could mot cancel. This time Marijke had to cancel though. We missed her!

The moment I arrived I started to smile and make silly jokes. Oh, how I do love these meetings. Everybody agrees! We laugh a lot. But we can also talk about serious life stuff, sure!

Daphne and her husband Charles spoiled us to the limit!

Cakes, appletart, cookies - special homemade all. "Roomsoesjes" or cream puffs, oh dear, from the shop....  The cookies with spelt and palmsugar, she made specially for me!

Olala! Yummie! Treat!

    Spelt ookies and apple tart, nothing wrong with it, Daph!

It's all hand patch and hand quilt these jolly mornings. Mornings that are more and more becoming almost a full day. Embroidery is allowed, not doing any stitch just as well :-)

Let's sit and start!

    Josee was quilting at her one cloth quilt. Great it is and soft! She uses lots of contempory fabrics and vibrant colours in her quilts. Very nice indeed! Love those too!

    Marjolein is almost done quilting with the Linnie quilt, she is been working so hard on these last weeks. She is a dedicated quilter, she is! It is the Antique Sampler, she and Lin started together at the Quilterspalet, the Hague. (here) It was a monthly gather to gether and everyone was making her own sampler.

Several people, little me too, helped with blocks Linda could not finish before her sudden death, last year. We were all shattered, I can tell you! Specially Marjolein, as she and Lin were very close friends.

It is a lot of work, still is, but is becoming very very beautiful. When it is finished it will go back to Peter, Lin's husband. It was meant to hang above their table. Felt very special and dear to be part of this special project. It's such a lovely idea to remember Linda. Thank you, Marjolein, for your sharing and caring!

    Hello, Kathleen! What are you doing? Your own special project, as usual?

This time it's the hexies again for the back of her vintage wool and vintage embroidery pieced quilt. She is making such beautiful and very clever quilts always her own way. Uses almost everytime fabrics from old clothes, blankets etc. From friends or herselfie. The embroideries she finds in second hand shops.

En me?

Just laughing and talking and showing off.... LOL!!!

No really..... I did some stitches on one of my Sashiko blocks. Almost finished that one.

Freshen up this WIP. Creating new designs for new blocks. Changing the design as it goes, originally made by Els van de Meeberg. Marjolein and me did a 5 lesson workshop at her home to master the art of Sashiko this Spring. It's an old Japanese stitching method. They used it to mend their clothes for ever.

    Cerry blossom on oakshot for my Sashiko Quilt. The red striped fabric is also oakshot and is meant for the sashing.

I found the oakshot at Carol Cox Quiltshop, Utrecht, this Spring. Lovely shop in the centre of this ancient city. Lots of Kaffe Fassett fabrics too, and almost every colour solid.

 

i love the book "Sashiko Handboek" by Susan Briscoe. (The ultimate Sashiko sourcebook) Lots of examples and infos on how-to's and patterns. Every pattern has a symbolic meaning and they are often going back to very ancient religious or royal symbols.

I love that sort of stuff.

So al lot of love goes into this quilt. :-)

Bit of a search it was into my stash heaps to find the sashiko I was working on, as they were covered by lots of other projects during the Summer. Bit of a chaotic hoarder, I am.... :-)

Well, anyway, love to do it, although the sewing gets sometimes tough.

Nothing comes easy, right?!

Daphne was doing.... What was she doing actually? Busy buzzy bee she was with her kind Charles to get us food and drinks.... Yummmmmm!!!!

Of course!

Show and tell!

She did show and tell!

She is a real craftswoman, she is, our Daphne.

Apart from quilting, she has made lots, and I mean LOTS of little dollhouses. Very very meticulous in every detail, precise on different scales too. Even 1:124! Yes, true! So beautiful, real art and awesome! Wow!

The things people make at home!

There's a whole new and happy world out there...

   It is so tiny, you can hardly see it, let alone hold it or make it! Scale 1:124. Hand made narcissus cut from paper.

    Another flowergarden. Scale 1:124

    Trunks on scale. Just look at every little detail!

    

    Cute wee tiny quilts.

Here we go with her show and tell.

You sit back, just relax, cup of tea at hand, and enjoy.

    Broderie, all roses abundance.

Daphne and Marjolein went to the broderie workshop from Ingrid van der Harst- Govers (here) (Supergoof) at Dorry's quiltshop Quilt it and Dotty, Tilburg (here).

    "Here will come little knots. And there. And there."

Patchwork with wool.

Behind you'll see one of the many cabinets with shelf after shelf with dollhouses.

    Another try out. What was the designer again?

    Often Daphne finds patterns on internet. Scaling it up or down to her liking and putting in her own ideas.

    Machine patchwork, first time try out. Not quite happy with this special stiff backing...

    Kim McClean! Oh, she's doing a Kim! Do love Kim!

    Daphne is using just fabrics with roses, and scaled the pattern down a bit to 70%.

    WIP on the roll...

    Cute doorhangings. Found at Craftsy's.

    Can I have one?

    No, you make it yourself!

       

.....She likes the back much better... LOL!!!

   

And one more...

    "Look, Liset, Cathedral windows doing it my way!"

    Just some embroidery hanging about. Home made. Are they not beauties!

    Does remind me of my mother. She did also a lot of crafts over thevyears.

    Like these birds my mum did as well...

When Petra and Henny joined the happy laughing bees party, it became all the merrier, the merrier.

(Really, this is not a good excample of how they usually look at our Bee, but my only picture of them.

Next time I'll make it up, Hennie, when it's your turn of Show and Tell. :-))

    Watever is Marjolein showing....?? I wonder....

Petra finished her star block from the Jubileum Sampler (designed by Jantine Urban from Urbanstyle 

(here), and Sandra Verhoog from the Stitch Cottage, the Hague. Sadly it's closed down now :-(()

She is going strong on that one, determined to make it a QIF (Quilt is Finished) 

Hennie was stitching at her sampler. Was it the Christmas one, Hennie? I am not sure now, silly me...

We only stopped talking when we had lunch. No, not the laughing!

I almost collapsed. It was delicious!

    Spoiled with delicious spelt bun and smoked salmon, finely graded salade with home made dressing.

After lunch I was suddenly completely worn out, to say the least, so decided to go home. It was allowed by the girls. :-)

Josee offered to walk me home, with my loaded heavy bags. Then Daphne offered her Charles... He took me home by car, so Josee could stay a little longer. Me feeling very special, I can tell you!

Home before three o'clock pm.

Daphne has got such a happy sunny home! Made us feel so much at home.

Treating us with love and care. Thank you, dear Daphne! You are a real gem! That goes to her Charles as well!

Next time we meet at Hennie's again.

Already looking forward to it very much.

Yeah!

Do love your nice comments, so please write something :-)

    Smiling at me one of the home made spelt cookies. Some came home with me, thank you, Daph! They are soooooo delicious!

Full show of The Linnie Antique Sampler quilt in progress.

Busy busy happy bee, that's me!

Octobre, 9th 2014

Lately more and more the urge of blogging is itching me. So why not just jump right into it...

I never dreamed getting as far as this day, with this ongoing cancer inside me. Life is unpredictable.

Lots of things happened of course, too much to memorise all in detail.

Lets restart this experimental handycraft blog.

Lets start with.....

Autumn.

Autumn came trodding in, silently at first, but more drumming recently with heavy raindrops and some lightning and thunder too.

Purfect time to hear my pretty Featherweight purr and running, buzzing like a busy bee, such satisfying zoomzzzzzoooming, happy humming bee she is my Scottish Featherweight, living with me now as Pretty Kitty. :-)

I have been busy with lots of teeny weeny stitchery and sewing projects.

Like my ongoing Cathedral Window project. Sewed all Summer most happily in our secret sunpatched little garden. I ran out of the red and white dotted fabric (That was in the workshop starters packet I bought at the wonderful Dotty weekend in March. What a treat that was! Met so many wonderful cheery people! It is realy a happy gathering quilting world.)

So I decided to make it also scrappy in red. First you have to cut a 15 cm square. Then you stitch the seam at 4 sides a scant 1/4 inch. Yes, I like a scant 1/4 inch seam allowance. It is just a teeny weeny more than 1/2 cm seam. You make kind of wee cushion bags, leaving a tiny opening so you can turn it inside out. Tada! Step 1. That's the machine part of it. The rest of the sewing is all done by hand.

More detail you'll find under chapter 'Cathedral Windows'.

...And after those, the ears of my teeny weeny pink felt eliphant, i found hiding in one of my boxes. Bought her years ago. She was beggng me for some broad day light. Here she comes...

...And the second log cabin, teeny weeny block in blues, red and whites.

This was Monday.

Yesterday it was third log cabin block time.

Here it is, in contempory fabrics. Last years birthday present from my sister Ruth.

This time I precut the strips the exact length they needed to be. Find this tutorial by modafabrics on my pinterest cupboard.

Here. (Don't know if this will work in Blog App on ipad.)

http://modafabrics.blogspot.com/2013/09/two-tricks-for-perfect-log-cabin-blocks.html?m=1

This one has made it into a teeny weeny pincushion. See? Almost there...... Just need to do some filling and embellish it with a crochet loop.

Soon I'll have three teeny weeny log cabin pincushions.

What will i do with them? Ah! Here comes a teeny weeny secret, not telling you yet :-)

Three teeny weeny pincushions to beee....

Wait and seeee!

You know, I think I get the hang of it... These log cabin blocks. I do like the precut mode. It is a bit more effort before you actually can start sewing,  but once you have measured and cut it all to your liking, and start actually sewing, it runs like a smooth train. Slow one, that is. Only one wee mistake this time.... sewing  on the wrong line.. Funny!

A wee lay out of strips on card board.

My mr B was also wandering around in the house. Had a peri-apical inflammation that bothered him, (wortelpuntontsteking) and he went under surgery this Wednesday morning. Auch!

He captured me, his happy cutting girl..... What will he do without his camera, I wonder....

After all this teeny weeny happy sewing, this lady was so tired, she decided to give it a rest. You know it was only two days ago I did have my 6th chemo treatment of Caelyx. But I had to roam on the quilting track. I simply had to.

It is such comfort and gives so much feel good, healing if you like, seeing something beautiful growing right under your nose and own hands.

It creates this teeny weeny happy bee. Me!

Spiderwebbing

Snow melted and the sun was shining again lovely. Fresh winds were blowing all dust nests away. Blew me in the mood to do some nice talking to my sewing machine, opened it up a bit and acted like the winds, with a little help from a tiny brush.

I was going to have a tutorial on Spiderweb Quilting, the first steps of creating a star point, the next morning.
It was sheduled at The Stitch Cottage, The Hague, and Jantine Urban was going to teach and tell us all about it.

It was fun and not too difficult. Can't wait to take it a step further, but my schedule of commitments is rather 'thick' these days. Too much going on, not only nice things. Like playing music and going to some other music. That was and is the nice part of it all, folks!

Anyway, this is what I came up with. Most scraps and fat quarters from my stash, but some greens from the shop longed to come along, couldn't resist it. Weak!

Haven't had time yet to bicycle all the way to the other quilt shop in town to get some more dark blue batik for my QAL. Maybe tomorrow. Fingers are tickling to go on with it.... (Sorry if my English is sometimes a bit (!) double Dutch for you. I am learrrning, that's the whole point! ;-))

Thinking of doing also some like this:

And I am sure on the go I will come up with some more exciting combinations, like some kind of red and more golden stripes, maybe blue middle points in the spiderweb. Even golden ones. Just anything what catches my eyes and makes me happy. The big star in the middle is going to be in two shades, greenish and blue-ish, you can just see a wee bit under the right wing. There will be also more darker blue and lighter blue combinations. At least that's what I am thinking now. This is definitely a project where everything will and can change during the process. Don't you agree?

Jantine is great in explaining and letting us do our own thing. I totally forgot to picture the choices of the other girls. Next time, new chances!

Jantine Urban and here fab red spiderweb.

Daphne and Angelica very busy at The Stitch Cottage.

My piece of cake...

Hope to give you later on more of it.

Starburst Star QAL

In the spur of a moment some major decisions are made. So when I came along this Indie Starburst star pattern I skipped all other projects I had in mind and started going along. Contacted Melissa Corry who made the pattern asking if I still could join. Wouldn't be a problem, so there I was looking through my stash, searching and deciding what fabrics and colors would do for me. I wasn't going to buy new ones.  Good idea to start with...

This is what I came up with. Don't you think it's pretty beautiful? A combination of Java Prints and Batiks.

The reds and blues are quite difficult to catch for my camera. Imagine them a bit darker in the 2nd row from right, and the reds brighter. I am not quite settled on the 2nd row, there might probably some changes during the process.

For the backround I changed from black to dark blue to black again and then I found this dark blue & black batik in my stash. Super! Not enough though, so soon this will be followed by a short (;-)) visit to the batik quiltshop...

Nothing wrong though with starting to cut the Java Prints...

Almost forget: I will do the 24 inch block size. That's big enough for me.

I like to think it to be a kind of tribute to my early childhood years I spent (with my parents and 2 sisters) in Indonesia in the late fiftees. In Bogor on the beautiful island of Java to be precise.


On the special tab page on top you will find all about the QAL and the on going process, I'd like to share with you.

You may like to see also more of it on http://www.flickr.com/photos/zil3lion56lis/

Something new

Patch & quilt season in full swing, so definitely high time for some new post. Been attending some classes ('workshops' we call it in Dutch - don't smile!). Had some great times while doing the stitches and great laughs and .... learning some new exciting things on the go.
Here's some pictures of of those ancient times:

First of all: Free Motion quilting class (1 day and 1 morning) by Jantine Urban at The Stitch Cottage, The Hague. (It was in the month Octobre....)
Under WIP you'll find the New York Beauty class.

My dear Mr. B (husband)'s jeans needed some more stitches..... Great stuff to practice on. By the way, the foot is a special one for my Pfaff from the Eighties.....

And here is just another pattern. Still practicing on some more fabrics. Just wait & see. It is great fun!